ITV Tonight
Drone filming with Helen Skelton at Harewood House in Yorkshire, before, during and after the Beast from the East
Play filmFilming the Beast from the East
The programme featured TV presenter Helen Skelton and focused on the arctic blast that hit the UK, nicknamed the Beast from the East.
On this drone filming shoot we used the DJI Inspire 2 with the X5S camera and several prime lenses.
The temperature was incredibly low, but apart from frozen fingers and toes it had no effect on the drone apart from slightly reduced flight time. This is due to the LiPo batteries being affected by the drop in temperature.
Once again the team from the ITV Tonight programme chose Halo Vue aerial filming due to its location in West Yorkshire and our reputation for getting amazing images.
We filmed before, during and after the snowstorm, so the programme could show the same Yorkshire landscape green, disappearing under the blizzard and then buried in white.
What ITV Tonight is all about
Tonight is ITV’s flagship current affairs programme: one big story, told in half an hour, every week.
Tonight began on ITV in April 1999 as Tonight with Trevor McDonald, taking over from the legendary World in Action. It has been on air ever since, fronted for many years by Julie Etchingham and now by Paul Brand.
Each edition takes a single subject that matters to people across Britain, from the cost of living, health and housing to crime, consumer rights and the weather, and tells it through the people living it, with a reporter out on location.
Helen Skelton has been one of the programme’s reporters for several years, and she fronted this edition, “Snowstorm: Britain’s Big Chill”, which went out on ITV on 1 March 2018 as the country was in the grip of the storm.
Because the programme is made quickly, often in the same week as the story it is covering, it needs crews who are close to the action and ready to go. For a snowstorm in the north of England, that was us.
Harewood House: another incredible Yorkshire location
We filmed at Harewood House, the great country house between Leeds and Harrogate, before, during and after the snowstorm.
Harewood is one of the treasure houses of England: an eighteenth-century house built for the Lascelles family, with interiors by Robert Adam, furniture by Thomas Chippendale and parkland laid out by Capability Brown, looking out across the lake towards Wharfedale.
It is a location we know well. The Harewood Estate is also home to the Emmerdale village set, where we have flown for ITV for many years, as you can read on our ITV Emmerdale page.
Seen from the air under snow, it is breathtaking. The terrace, the formal gardens and the long sweep of the park all vanish into white, with only the dark lines of the trees and the stone of the house to give it shape.
Filming in the same place three times let the programme show the storm arriving. First a cold, clear Yorkshire day, then the blizzard itself with the snow driving in on the east wind, then the stillness and blue skies that followed.
Helen Skelton, the crew and the Inspire 2 in the snow
A 4x4, lunch at Helen’s and a live interview in the snow
With roads closing all over Yorkshire, our 4x4 came in very handy.
Getting a drone crew and a car full of kit to a location is not usually the hard part of the job. In the Beast from the East it was. Main roads were shut, side roads were drifted in, and without four-wheel drive we would not have got to Harewood or home again.
The day turned into one of those shoots you never forget. Helen made lunch back at her house for myself and the crew, while doing a live interview by Zoom with the snow falling outside the window.
That is what working with Helen Skelton is like. We know her well from filming on BBC Countryfile, and she is exactly the same off camera as on it: generous, unflappable and always ready to muck in.
Then it was back out into the cold. Batteries were kept warm in the vehicle until the last moment, gloves came off only to fly, and every flight was a little shorter than usual, but the aircraft never missed a beat.
The kit, the crew and the Yorkshire weather
Extra Bits
Our drone filming days are often very heavily edited to fit in with the context of a production, so it’s always nice for you to see a few extra shots.
Here’s a compilation of drone shots we took with Helen Skelton on the ITV Tonight programme, “The Beast from the East”, which we knew you’d enjoy.
It includes one of the strangest sights of that week: the M62, the highest motorway in England and normally one of the busiest roads in the north, closed and empty across the Pennines in the snow.
Play filmLet's Talk AboutYour Project
Whether you're planning a national TV series or a cinematic brand film, we'll help you capture every story from above.
Check Availability
Choose the quickest option for you:
Call Phil directly07957 627 628 Send an emailphil@halovue.co.uk